Cristiana Corsi, Italian taekwondo martial artist, Died at 39

Cristiana Corsi was born on April 23, 1976, in Rome, and died on February 22, 2016.

She was an Italian taekwondo practitioner.

She competed in the women’s featherweight category.

She’s rated as one of Italy’s top taekwondo players of her decade.

Cristiana received a total of nine medals in her sporting tenure, including a gold at the 2002 European Championships in Samsun, Turkey, and a silver in the 59-kg division at the 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu, South Korea.

In 2000 and 2004, she was selected to compete for the Italian taekwondo squad in two editions of the Olympic Games, where she had a fifth-place finish in the women’s featherweight category (57 kg) in each edition.

Over the years in her sporting career, she trained for Rome Taekwondo Centre (Italian: Centro TDK Roma) in her native Rome under Korean-born head coach and master Park Young-Gil.

She made her professional debut at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where she competed in the women’s 57-kg class.

Cristiana Corsi opened her match with a more satisfactory victory over Brazil’s Carmen Silva 5–2, before falling behind 1–8 on points to South Korean fighter Jung Jae-eun.

Cristiana yielded herself a chance to compete for the Olympic bronze medal in the repechage, but she close(ly) missed it in a 5–6 defeat to the Netherlands’ Virginia Lourens, relegating her to the fifth position.

After 2 years, Cristiana became a European champion in Samsun, Turkey under the women’s featherweight division (59 kg), after brushing aside her Russian opponent Margarita Mkrtchyan in the final.

At the South Korea 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu, she chased the local favourite Kim Sae-rom for the gold, but she took the silver medal.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Corsi qualified for her second Italian squad in the women’s featherweight class (57 kg) by placing second behind South Korea’s Jang Ji-won and granting a berth from the World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Paris, France.

At second and one of the athletes who was predicted to reach the final, Corsi started her fight with a smooth 2–0 triumph over France’s Gwladys Épangue until she was stunned in a narrow 2–3 defeat to 20-year-old American neophyte Nia Abdallah during their quarterfinal match.

There, she secured a 5–2 lead over Russia’s Margarita Mkrtchyan for another Olympic medal chance in the repechage, but ended again in fifth to match her placement from Sydney, following a 2–3 deficit to Mexico’s Iridia Salazar.